An advert for a self-proclaimed 'evil' car featuring a pigeon-bashing bonnet has been slammed by animal charities.  The advert shows a pigeon about to swoop down from a tree to deposit its load on a newly-polished Ford Sportka.  As it gets close to the car the bonnet springs up, strikes the bird and catapults it across the road to its death.

Pigeon fanciers have been quick to condemn the advert, which appears on the Ford UK website. Brian Tattersall, president of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association, has called for the advert to be banned.  "It is in incredibly bad taste," he said.

"The pigeon finishes up dead in the middle of the road - it's black humour which we don't find amusing.  We have written to the Advertising Standards Agency and to Ford UK and are hoping for an apology."

The RSPCA has also joined the battle to ban the advert, claiming that the use of shock tactics to cause offence and gain publicity is just "very, very bad taste."  Spokeswoman Katy Geary said: "There surely must be better ways of describing a car's capabilities than this.

"It's about time that these companies stop these shock tactics, start acting responsibly and think carefully about the messages they are giving out."  A spokeswoman for Ford said that the advert was aimed at young men and was intended to be humorous.

"We do take the public's concerns very seriously but we believe that people will understand that we would not hurt an animal in the making of an advert.  "The car is most certainly not designed to hurt animals."

UP to 200 chickens were bludgeoned to death with a golf club overnight at a poultry farm south of Brisbane.

The owner of the farm at Enkelmen Road, Yatala, arrived at work this morning to find the dead chickens.

Police were unable to put an exact figure on the number of chickens killed but said it was between 150 and 200 birds.  Three youths – one 15-year-old and two 16-year-old boys – are being questioned. 

Don't do amateur experiments on farm animals in Statesboro. 

Four Georgia Southern University students face criminal charges and school disciplinary action. They are accused of killing chickens just to see whether they really run around with their heads cut off. 

Animal lovers said no such experiments are necessary. It's well-established chickens can run around after their heads are cut off – as well as jerk and twist – as a nervous reaction. 

"All they had to do was ask a science teacher. Or ask a farmer," said Rob Lee, executive director of the Humane Society of Chatham-Savannah. 

Students Brennan Lee Hoffman, 18; Guillermo Alejandro Briceno, 18; Beau Wesley Hamilton, 19; and Jacob David Plunkett, 18, were arrested Sunday and charged with burglary, cruelty to animals and criminal trespass. Their three visiting friends – Natalie Mae Britt, 17; Natalie Jeannie Ingram, 18; and Richard Martin Gonzalez, 19 – face the same criminal charges. A few also face underage drinking charges. 

Hoffman and Gonzalez also were charged with aggravated cruelty to animals, a felony offense. 

The teens, all from Conyers, were released on bond. 

Bulloch County Chief Deputy Gene McDaniel said the teens brought machetes, knives and a hatchet, and broke into a commercial chicken house on Brannen Farm Lane on Harville Road.

McDaniel said they are accused of taping and photographing the decapitation of at least two chickens. A man found the teens in his chicken house and called authorities, McDaniel said. 

The teens got the idea when someone made a comment referring to "chickens running around with their heads chopped off," McDaniel said.

"Apparently some of them wondered if it was true," McDaniel said. 

The director of judicial affairs at GSU plans to press charges under the student conduct code, University spokesman Michael Sullivan said Wednesday, according to The Associated Press.

"This is considered a serious incident," he said. "It is not being taken lightly."

The students could be suspended or expelled, or could receive a disciplinary warning or be placed on probation, AP reported.

"We're really embarrassed," Hamilton said Wednesday, according to AP. "We're really not even bad kids. It was a bad incident and we feel really bad."

Acts of animal cruelty are not uncommon – especially to chickens, cats and dogs, Lee said. 

"We've seen cases of dogs being burned in Savannah, dog fighting, dogs being hung, people throwing gasoline on cats," Lee said. 

"It's not just something that happens in rural areas. And it's not specific to certain social levels either. Rich kids do it, as well as poor ones. Adults as well as kids.

"It's usually people with a real low regard for the rights of others, whether it's people or animals."